Preparing the wood

The way I make my instruments involves the same mould technique that Antonio Stradivari was using himself (just a little bit modernized).
This means that using the same template you saw before, I built an internal mould around which the ribs will be steam bent and secured. To fix them to the mould, we use blocks (4 in the 4 corners and one at the top and the bottom). For these I use pine. These blocks are the depth of the ribs and then are shaped in the form of the corners.
When the rib structure is ready to be taken off the mould, the blocks stay with the ribs and are removed from the mould. They provide a gluing surface for the plates (front and back) as well as for the ribs.

My following task was to square up the neck block. It is important to have the neck block very accurately square so the scroll itself will be straight and the pegs square to the neck too.
This also allow me to have the neck well straight into the body when I come to it.

We also have to thickness the ribs. In order to keep them more stable while stored and seasoned, rib wood comes about 4 mm thick but are used at the thickness of 2 mm or less. This is a hard and painstaking job... That's why Douglas did it ! ;-)